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The Secret Garden (Dover Juvenile Classics) (Paperback)
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
| Category:
Fiction, Self-recognizing & friendship, Ages 9-12, Children's books |
| Market price: ¥ 98.00
MSL price:
¥ 88.00
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 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
A heartwarming, truly timeless classic written more than a hundred years ago telling how a spoiled and sickly orphan discovers the pleasures of blooming flowers, friendship, good health, and high spirits in the restoration of an abandoned garden. |
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Author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
Publisher: Dover Publications
Pub. in: October, 1999
ISBN: 006440188X
Pages: 256
Measurements: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BC00290
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- MSL Picks -
This is a truly beautiful book about the power of life to heal the sick and the down hearted. Using the analogy of a garden coming to life, and the plants blooming in the springtime, Burnett tells the story of children and people becoming well, and discovering the "Magic" that is life, or God.
Mary is a sour little girl from India who is orphaned after a sickness hits her Indian town, and she is sent to live with her uncle, Archibold Craven, in Yorkshire, England. The manor is full of mysteries, as Mary soon discovers. Along with her new friend Dickon, a boy animal charmer from across the moor, she begins to discover the secrets of the manor and of the gardens that surround it.
"It was the sweetest, most mysterious-looking place any one could imagine. The high walls which shut it in were covered with the leafless stems of roses which were so thick, that they matted together... 'No wonder it is still,' Mary whispered. 'I am the first person who has spoken here for ten years.'" As new life sprouts from the earth, Mary and Colin's sour natures begin to sweeten. For anyone who has ever felt afraid to live and love, The Secret Garden's portrayal of reawakening spirits will thrill and rejuvenate. Frances Hodgson Burnett creates characters so strong and distinct, young readers continue to identify with them even 85 years after they were conceived.
This is a beautiful book, just brimming over with life. It is recommended to young readers as well as adult. It is very sweet, and has a warm-hearted tone.
Target readers:
Kids aged 9-12
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Frances Hodgson Burnett (1849-1924) grew up in England, but she began writing what was to become The Secret Garden in 1909, when she was creating a garden for a new home in Long Island, New York. Burnett was already established as a novelist for adults when she turned to writing for children. Little Lord Fauntleroy, written for her two young boys; the play A Little Princess, which became the basis for the novel of the same name; and The Secret Garden are the works for which she is most warmly remembered.
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A spoiled and sickly orphan blossoms into a creature of loving kindness in this unforgettable classic of childhood. At her uncle's forbidding Yorkshire estate, Mary joins with new friends in the restoration of an abandoned garden and discovers the pleasures of blooming flowers, friendship, good health, and high spirits. What secrets lie behind the doors at Misselthwaite Manor? Recently arrived at her uncle's estate, orphaned Mary Lennox is spoiled, sickly, and certain she won't enjoy living there. Then she discovers the arched doorway into an overgrown garden, shut up since the death of her aunt ten years earlier. Mary soon begins transforming it into a thing of beauty-unaware that she is changing too. But Misselthwaite hides another secret, as Mary discovers one night. High in a dark room, away from the rest of the house, lies her young cousin, Colin, who believes he is an incurable invalid, destined to die young. His tantrums are so frightful, no one can reason with him. If only, Mary hopes, she can get Colin to love the secret garden as much as she does, its magic will work wonders on him.
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Chapter One
When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor to live with her uncle everybody said she was the most disagreeable-looking child ever seen. It was true, too. She had a little thin face and a little thin body, thin light hair and a sour expression. Her hair was yellow, and her face was yellow because she had been born in India and had always been ill in one way or another. Her father had held a position under the English Government and had always been busy and ill himself, and her mother had been a great beauty who cared only to go to parties and amuse herself with gay people. She had not wanted a little girl at all, and when Mary was born she handed her over to the care of an Ayah, who was made to understand that if she wished to please the Mem Sahib she must keep the child out of sight as much as possible. So when she was a sickly, fretful, ugly little baby she was kept out of the way, and when she became a sickly, fretful, toddling thing she was kept out of the way also. She never remembered seeing familiarly anything but the dark faces of her Ayah and the other native servants, and as they always obeyed her and gave her her own way in everything, because the Mem Sahib would be angry if she was disturbed by her crying, by the time she was six years old she was as tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived. The young English governess who came to teach her to read and write disliked her so much that she gave up her place in three months, and when other governesses came to try to fill it they always went away in a shorter time than the first one. So if Mary had not chosen to really want to know how to read books she would never have learned her letters at all.
One frightfully hot morning, when she was about nine years old, she awakened feeling very cross, and she became crosser still when she saw that the servant who stood by her bedside was not her Ayah.
"Why did you come?" she said to the strange woman. "I will not let you stay. Send my Ayah to me."
The woman looked frightened, but she only stammered that the Ayah could not come and when Mary threw herself into a passion and beat and kicked her, she looked only more frightened and repeated that it was not possible for the Ayah to come to Missie Sahib.
There was something mysterious in the air that morning. Nothing was done in its regular order and several of the native servants seemed missing, while those whom Mary saw slunk or hurried about with ashy and scared faces. But no one would tell her anything and her Ayah did not come. She was actually left alone as the morning went on, and at last she wandered out into the garden and began to play by herself under a tree near the veranda. She pretended that she was making a flower bed, and she stuck big scarlet hibiscus blossoms into little heaps of earth, all the time growing more and more angry and muttering to herself the things she would say and the names she would call Saidie when she returned.
"Pig! Pig! Daughter of Pigs!" she said, because to call a native a pig is the worst insult of all.
She was grinding her teeth and saying this over and over again when she heard her mother comes out on the veranda with someone. She was with a fair young man and they stood talking together in low strange voices. Mary knew the fair young man who looked like a boy. She had heard that he was a very young officer who had just come from England. The child stared at him, but she stared most at her mother. She always did this when she had a chance to see her, because the Mem Sahib–Mary used to call her that oftener than anything else–was such a tall, slim, pretty person and wore such lovely clothes. Her hair was like curly silk and she had a delicate little nose which seemed to be disdaining things, and she had large laughing eyes. All her clothes were thin and floating, and Mary said they were "full of lace." They looked fuller of lace than ever this morning, but her eyes were not laughing at all. They were large and scared and lifted imploringly to the fair boy officer's face.
"Is it so very bad? Oh, is it?" Mary heard her say.
"Awfully," the young man answered in a trembling voice. "Awfully, Mrs. Lennox. You ought to have gone to the hills two weeks ago."
The Mem Sahib wrung her hands.
"Oh, I know I ought!" she cried. "I only stayed to go to that silly dinner party. What a fool I was!"
At that very moment such a loud sound of wailing broke out from the servants' quarters that she clutched the young man's arm, and Mary stood shivering from head to foot. The wailing grew wilder and wilder.
"What is it? What is it?" Mrs. Lennox gasped.
"Someone has died," answered the boy officer. "You did not say it had broken out among your servants."
"I did not know!" the Mem Sahib cried. "Come with me! Come with me!" And she turned and ran into the house.
After that appalling things happened, and the mysteriousness of the morning was explained to Mary. The cholera had broken out in its most fatal form and people were dying like flies. The Ayah had been taken ill in the night, and it was because she had just died that the servants had wailed in the huts. Before the next day three other servants were dead and others had run away in terror. There was panic on every side, and dying people in all the bungalows.
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| View all 14 comments |
Sammy Madison (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
This is truly a great book. The book starts in India, 100 years ago. Mary is neglected by her parents. Mary is not a beautiful or healthy child, the hot humid air and the narcissism of her popular, immature mother have seen to that. When the adults around her are killed by disease, Mary is shipped off to the lonely manor house of her uncle, Archibald Craven. The grim housekeeper, Mrs. Medlock, accompanies her on a cold, dark, rainy journey across the moors, and attempts to quash the child's spirit. But Mary is strong and stubborn, and begins secretly exploring her new world! And being out of doors as spring comes to England changes Mary. She begins to make friends: Martha, the servant girl from a cottage on the moors, her magical, pan-like brother Dickon, and her cousin Colin, a child even more messed up than Mary. Outdoors, she makes friends with the gruff old gardener, Ben Weatherstaff and the perky little English robin who shows her a wonderful secret garden. The gardener Ben, and Martha and Dickon's wonderful mother provide a counterpoint to Mr. Craven, Mary's parents, and the nasty houskeeper and family doctor who have caused so much damage to Mary and Colin. The children, both so traumatized by the disfunctional adults who are in charge of them, use the power of nature and exercise to regenerate their own physical and mental health. Descriptions of how the children discover the beauty of the moors and the gardens that surround Misselthwait Manor have introduced generations of children to the love of plants, animals, and the out-of-doors. |
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Ten-year-old Mary comes to live in a lonely house on the Yorkshire moors and discovers an invalid cousin and the mysteries of a locked garden. My favorite parts of this book are when Mary finds the secret garden and when she finds Dickon. I think what the author is trying to portray is that nature is magical. I would recommend this book to other people because it fills you with wonder and excitement. I give this book five stars. |
Fitzwilliam (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
I first found this book in the fourth grade, two decades ago. I liked it then, I love it now. A child spurned, a child lost, a child at home in nature, children finding healing in the secret place as heart touches heart touches healthy heart. Their love touching the heart of the father. |
A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
A heartwarming, truly timeless book. I read this with my 6th grade class and was amazed at how much they got into it... even the boys! I read it with them to expose them to something more thought-provoking than Goosebumps, but they seemed to grow wiser and more mature. Months later, they were still comparing current events to situations presented in the book. As an added bonus, their taste in literature improved dramatically. |
View all 14 comments |
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